Rei meets Alma
{{ | date=05/30/2018 | time=21:00 EST | summary=Alma sees Rei through a fog darkly. | cast=
| place_name=A grove in measure 2, Old East Side | log=In the declining light of day one side of the sky is lighter than the other. This woman is facing the darkside and lights a candle set amoung marigolds. That started, she scores a channel in the dirt and then cuts her thumb to spill out a gift of blood. Note craws from her shoulder, ruffled.
Kai's voice - wait, where is she? Comes from somewhere above. "...Note?" She must be up in that elm over there.
Something is afoot! Rei is out patrolling through Measure 2 as she sometimes does whether to help people who accidentally wound up on the wrong side of the tracks, harvest usable resources from the gangs, or battle the occasional blood mutant monstrosities. Today however, her sensors register a blip from an overgrown field in the viscinity of Kai's house. Possibilities scroll through her mind ranging from Kai is doing something benign to extra-dimensional invaders are devouring Kai's entrails, assigning percentages of liklihood accordingly. Given that Kai is filed under the category of humans Rei actually likes, she decides to investigate.
The woman in the field is still kneeling. She peers all around and above, and starts to sing, Pajarito del cielo
Pajarito del cielo,
Que en mis pies se posó,
Con el pico un mensaje,
De mamá me entregó,
Pajarito del cielo,
Que regresas allá,
Yo contigo quisiera,
Ir a ver a mamá.
Translation: Birdie from the sky
That landed on my feet,
With its bill it gave me
A message from my mom.
Birdie from the sky
That goes back there,
I'd like to go with you
To see my mom.
It's quiet from up in the elm tree there at the corner of the field for a minute while Alma sings, and then Kai starts clambering down, head tilted with a curious cant; when she comes to the last branch, some five feet off the ground, she crouches and jumps that last bit. She is not a superhero. It does not look graceful. But she also doesn't fall on her ass.
Kai's falling from trees! Rei is not startled by the sudden appearance of Kai, she does not possess that reaction to sudden stimuli, "Kai, you are safe?" she calls over to the other woman, "I detected a disturbance and thought you might be in danger." she asks in her Rei way which is to say emotionally muted.
She hears voices, but one of them sounds like Kai. "Kai?" Alma looks towards where she thinks Kai's voice is coming from. She says "Kai!" with great urgency
Kai, today, is wearing a pair of jeans and a fluttery lavender camisole... and no shoes. She takes a moment to dust the bits of bark and detritus from her butt, then starts wandering Alma's direction. "Over here, Alma." She glances over her shoulder at Rei. "I'm fine. I don't - /think/ I'm in danger." A pause. "Alma?"
"I am glad to hear that. Do you know what might have caused the spiritual disturbance?" Rei pauses and then tilts her head curiously looking at Kai, "Alma?"
Kai is probably ok. She thinks she heard so, but she'd like to be certain. Alma very careful stands up and heads over to where she thinks Kai is. "Kai?" It's slow going in all this fog.
Kai lifts her brows at Rei, and shakes her head, but continues her meander toward Alma; when she arrives at the woman, she just reaches out a hand for her arm, gentle but present. "You alright?" she asks. "Hurt?" A pause, then a glance back at Rei. "She's a friend," she says.
Rei nods at the friend designation and turns to Alma, "Hello. I am Rei." she informs her, information very simply stated.
Alma holds out her thumbs to Kai, "I'm okay, just a little sore from all the nicks." Alma's pupils are huge, trying to draw in more light than exists right now. She's not always staring in the right place. She looks towards where Rei is and says, "Hi, I'm Alma." She tilts her head so that brushes up against the crow on her shoulder. "She is Note. I'm a behavioral ecologist, um, mage." Turning her face in the direction of Kai, she asks "Why is it more decayed on the other side when it is spring here and everything grew?" Alma doesn't understand cosmology all that well.
Kai gives Alma's arm a squeeze, falls silent a moment; after a second, she reaches up to run knuckles over Note's breast. "I dunno," she says. "Not really what I do." There's a pause, then: "Ask Maya? Maybe?" She glances back at Rei, there. "Euthanatos," she says. Like she thinks that'll obviously have meaning to her.
Rei nods looking between Alma and the bird, "Nice to meet you." she replies. Then says the 'E' word "Euth..." Rei is puzzled by this word, she gets a distant look in her eyes for a few moments, "Greek: Easy Death." this seems to confuse her a bit, "She is an easy death? Do you mean she is some manner of highly skilled killer or easy to kill? This seems to be an odd descriptor to apply to your friend."
Long distance to Kai: Alma is comparing the state of things through the shroud with here. you mentioned decay was more prominate, so that's one thing. Does the terrain mirror what is on the other side or is it compeltely different? You paged Kai with 'she'll note this in her journal for later perusal'
Kai pages: Through the shroud generally has more decay - everywhere. But it also tends to match something about the state of things - like if there was decay RL or rot or illness, it would show increased levels on the other side. But this could be relatively confusing Alma. * The penumbra - all the versions - are not quickly reactive. Kai took something that was really run-down and sick and gave it new life. It isn't showing up over there yet. (After the *, that's OOC knowledge, not IC.)
Alma shivers, and her eyes refocus. She can see Rei and Kai more clearly now. "It's a name given to a traditon. 'Euth' can also mean Good," she explains to Rei. "Like euphany versus cacophany. ...Are you familiar with traditions? I am not that familiar with them myself."
"If you decide to kill Alma," Kai says, "it won't be easy." Which sounds like she's... half joking? It's dry. But also, maybe a little not joking, the sardonic twist to it suggestive of as much. "I'd assumed you'd joined up," she observes; that's gentler. All of it is directed at Rei, by the by.
Rei continues to look confused by Kai, "You said she is your friend, why would I decide to kill her?" These are clearly contradictory classifications to her, "Joined up?" it takes a moment, "Oh there was someone who came to see me about joining the Society of Ether, she seemed mentally unbalanced, emotionally unstable, and a possible agent of the Order of Reason so nothing moved forward there. There was one thing she did say though that made sense, similar to what you and Anthony said. Where is Anthony? I have not seen or heard from him in quite some time. She said belonging itself can be better than being alone. I am already an Electrodyne Engineer, but I am still considering joining this Society if I can figure out how to communicate with this Gernsback. Emma who I also met seems to be in much better mental health and a valuable ally."
A possibly lethal show of force does not happen, for which Alma is grateful. She follows Rei's conversation with Kai, but does not recognize all of the names. She does, however, have experience with mental illness in herself and with helping people. She's been doing work. "I... like that you are cautious about joining up to a society. On the other hand, I think you should reconsider how you evaluate people in terms of mental health. Perhaps don't be so binary abuot it?" She touches her sternum. "I've have spells of mental illness, but I'm still able to do research, have friends, love people? All the connections we make with friends and society and jobs... those form a safetynet. Cultivate that and you'll be held true when an episode comes on. Everything won't fall apart. Have you been by Second Stories? I help with group therapy there sometimes." She reaches up to scritch Kai's hair. "Be colleagues maybe, even with mentally unbalanced people. It's not all or nothing. You seem to have enough insite to know to be wary, so that's good. but," she looks around, "are you isolating yourself too much?"
Kai looks like she's about to respond to all that... stuff? Rei says? But Alma's on it, and she turns her attention on the redhead while she speaks, and after, lifts a shoulder. "Yeah, that, I guess." A pause, then: "I mean, I don't find any of the Etherites like..." she stops, wiggles her fingers in the air vaguely. "I guess Emma's cute. But if you decide they aren't for you, go... find the Adepts or something." There's a pause, then there's more: "There's a new guy in town - new Etherite. Hackenmiller something something. Have you met him?" Beat. "I don't really trust him, but."
"I found the varied value she placed on human life dependent on age troubling." Rei replies to Alma with a shrug, "It is true, I am interested in this larger society. I do not think my mentor wants me to remain alone." she turns thoughtfully at something Kai says, "Adepts, Virtual Adepts? Like Aster? Her views are quite interesting and not disimilar from my own in some ways. Though I wish to investigate further if the Society of Ether is truly the legacy of the Electrodyne Engineers."
"Hackenmiller... Arthur. I think he needs a mentor to help him learn how to interact with people. He was not considerate towards his interns. Mentors are important. I'm a euthanatos because of my mentor. I'm not an engineer but I do do research. And I've been learning about mage society recently. I could introduce you to the people I've met so far? And Arthur has a hangout for people, but I haven't visited it yet. And if you need to talk to someone about the mind, I can help you there. I've got a background in it." Alma pulls out one of her notebooks and writes some information down for Rei. }}
